Vodafone threatens to sue Indian Facebook user

Indian mobile phone company Vodafone Essar has warned a customer that it will sue him for defamation over comments he made on his Facebook page about the firm’s services.

India’s third-largest cell phone operator by subscribers sent the notice to Dhaval Valia on May 26, asking him to stop making defamatory statements on the popular social networking site and remove earlier posts within 48 hours.

Failure to do so would lead to civil and criminal proceedings against him, according to the notice, which was seen by AFP yesterday.

The business journalist was also warned about sending “unnecessary, unneeded and unwarranted” text messages to senior managers and about posting the phone numbers of Vodafone customer care officials for other people to complain.

The text messages had caused the staff “mental trauma”, while the statements were “an attempt to defame the name and spoil the goodwill of our client (Vodafone) in the market,” the notice from legal firm India Law Alliance said.

The dispute centres around the availability of third-generation mobile services in the northern Mumbai suburb where Valia lives.

India is the world’s fastest-growing mobile market and has more than 800 million subscribers. High-speed 3G mobile networks offering fast data transfer capabilities are now being rolled out.

Vodafone, which has more than 127 million subscribers, spent $2.4 billion buying 3G licences.

Valia is now pressing a counter-claim against Vodafone for “mental harassment, twisting facts, and arm-twisting consumers into submitting to their faulty and misleading ways and thus acting against the rights of consumers”.